The Shard

The Shard, at 1,016 feet, is at the time of writing the tallest building in Western Europe. (The tallest in Europe is the Lakhta Center, Saint Petersburg, at 1,517 feet. There are four other European buildings taller than the Shard, all in Moscow.) Its 95 storeys replaced the 24 storeys of Southwark Towers (1975), one of the dismal buildings around London Bridge station that made the area rather glum - albeit historically interesting. 

Irvine Sellar, the developer of the Shard, who started his career selling clothes from market stalls, bought Southwark Towers in 1998, but it was to be ten years before construction of the Shard commenced. The original proposal was for a 1,400 feet tall 'pipe', with a corkscrew spire, designed by Peter Vaughan of Broadway Malyan, a dull design that, had it been built, would have been truly hideous. The Shard is properly uplifting architecture, designed by Renzo Piano, whose very first sketches were for a tapering spire of glass. 

Originally designated as London Bridge Tower, the Shard faced years of difficulties before it ever lifted from the ground, including intense resistance from those who thought insane the idea of constructing the UK's tallest building south of the river, from English Heritage, and from Historic Royal Palaces. It was a positive recommendation from a public planning inquiry that allowed the scheme to proceed to financing. 

The financing itself proved a headache. The 2003 planning permission required building to commence within five years. The recession of 2007/08 made it difficult to secure the necessary funds. A deal with Credit Suisse for the requisite £1.35 billion fell through at the last moment. It was the financing by the Qatar National Bank that ultimately enabled the Shard to be built. The State of Qatar now owns 95% of the development. 

The constructor was Mace - new to very tall buildings, as were Sellar and Piano - who agreed a £435 million fixed-price contract, itself unusual for such a project. Amongst the dozens of specialists, WSP Global acted as lead engineering consultants, Stent undertook the piling - 120 piles, three feet in diameter, driven 177 feet beneath the lowest basement level - and Byrne Bros. the concreting; whilst Severfield-Rowen provided the steel, Scheldebouw the glass, and KONE the lifts. 

Demolition of Southwark Towers commenced in April 2008, and construction of its replacement began on 16 March 2009. The Civil Aviation Authority had set a height limit of 1,000 feet. The Shard is, though, 16 feet taller than that, as it has a split-level base, and height is measured from a building's lowest above-ground level. The 801 feet tall core topped out in early 2011, and the structural work was completed on 30 March 2012. The formal opening ceremony was held on 5 July 2012. 

The building has a central concrete core, which resists twisting motions induced by the wind. 11,300 tons of steel went into strengthening this and shaping the tapering form. In a first for construction of a skyscraper, the core was carried upwards at the same time as the basement was driven downwards. The ground floor was cast first, the earth extracted beneath this, another slab cast, and so on down to the bottom of the third basement level, 42 feet below ground. The core was carried up 21 storeys before the lowest slab - 13 feet thick, 194,000 cubic feet of concrete, delivered by 700 trucks - was laid in just 36 hours. 

By this point the core was rising ten feet per day, absorbing 11,300 cubic feet of concrete diurnally, and the building as a whole was rising three storeys every fortnight. A crane atop the core was hydraulically jacked upwards as the build proceeded. This first crane built a second, cantilevered off the 55th level, which then dismantled the first. 

Unlike most skyscrapers, the Shard doesn't have a mass damping system. Instead, the floors below the hotel and residences are built in steel, and the habitable floors above in concrete, providing an inbuilt high-level mass. The tower has a sway tolerance of 16 inches. The 217 feet tall open spire, which forms the top 23 storeys, gives the Shard a feeling of blending into the sky, despite weighing 492 tons. It was test-built offsite before being built up from the upper deck of the observatory. The white steel frames are part in-filled with 516 glass panels, giving the top of the tower a feathered look. 

The eight façades, angled at six degrees to the vertical, are clad with 11,000 panels of glass, covering 602,800 square feet. This is of a special low-iron formulation, such that the building has a crystalline appearance - most skyscrapers have a green tint. The glass is also of the float, instead of the toughened, type, so what is reflected in it is crisp, not ripped. Finally, the glass is only 20% reflective, which makes the building look more permeable than most skyscrapers. Each panel, comprising an outer pane, a void within which sits an automatically-operated translucent blind, and inner double-glazing, weighs nearly a third of a ton. The blinds retract into red-orange boxes. 

The Shard is a mixed-use building, and has been described as a vertical city. The tower provides 4.3 million square feet of space, over 72 habitable floors. 26 floors are offices (3-28), three are occupied by restaurants (31-33), 19 are taken up by the Shangri-La luxury hotel (34-52), 13 are residential apartments (53-65), and six are in the form of the multi-storey observatory. This last extends from level 68 to level 72 - some of the spaces comprised of more than one storey - and attracts a million visitors annually. 

There are 36 lifts - 13 of the passenger varieties of which are double-decked, serving two floors at once - saving visitors the 306 flights of stairs. Automated detection systems in the circulation areas direct people to the lift that will get them to their destination most quickly. 

The Shard is part of a much wider redevelopment of the London Bridge area that includes two other buildings of which Sellar was the developer and Piano the designer - the News Building and Shard Place - and extensive re-modelling of the railway station, including a new concourse roof, also by Piano, and of the street-level environment. The area is now infinitely more attractive than it used to be, and despite all the early opposition the Shard is now very much London's adopted symbol.

Falkirk Wheel

The Forth and Clyde Canal (built 1768 to 1790) and the Union Canal (built 1818 to 1822) were once linked by a flight of 11 locks at Camelon, near Falkirk, that carried the former 112 feet up to the latter. These fell into disuse in 1933. When the Millennium Link project set out to restore the two canals and rejoin the Clyde and the Forth, a task achieved in just three years between 1999 and 2001, a new means of connecting them was required.

The Falkirk Wheel, built 2000 to 2002, was the solution. The world's first rotating boat lift, the wheel forms part of a £20m complex comprising a 551 feet long tunnel that carries the Union Canal under the Antonine Wall, a 341 feet long aqueduct that brings this higher canal to the wheel, and the lift down to a large basin that itself gives onto the Forth and Clyde Canal. The site is just under two miles from the original locks, and was previously home to a redundant tar works.

The wheel itself is 115 tall and 89 feet long, and bridges 82 vertical feet between the two canals. Designed by Nicoll Russell Studios, of Dundee, it employs two interlinked mechanisms that serve to keep level the rotating gondolas, and the water and boats within them, whilst using the bare minimum of power. Just 1.5kW, about that needed to boil six kettles of water, is required to turn the wheel through 180 degrees, yet the transition takes just five minutes.

The first mechanism is the ten hydraulic motors that drive the axle, 13 feet in diameter, and thereby a central cog, 26' 3" in diameter, fixed to both the axle and the end support of the aqueduct. As the axle turns, smaller rotating cogs, either side of the central cog, transfer the drive to cogs mounted inside of the propeller-like arms of the wheel, one each side. These outer cogs rotate at the same speed as the central one, being the same size as this, but in the opposite direction to the axle and the wheel as a whole.

The second mechanism, a series of bogie wheels at each end of the 82 feet long gondolas, run on curved rails mounted within the propeller arms. Gravity largely enables this second mechanism alone to keep the gondolas horizontal, but wheel friction and sudden displacements within the gondolas could jolt these out of alignment. The non-powered mechanism of five cogs keeps everything safely aligned.

From boat entry to boat departure, the trip through the lift takes just 15 minutes. Once boats have entered/departed the gondolas, paired steel gates move from a prone position to an upright one, closing off the gondolas, the aqueduct at the top, and the basin at the bottom. Rubber seals spring out along the sides and bottoms of the paired gates and the water between these is pumped out. When the half turn is completed, water is pumped back into the space between the paired gates, which then flap downwards to enable boats to depart/enter the lift.

The speed, elegance and efficiency of the wheel belie its scale. The complete structure weighs in at 1,772 tons, of which 98 tons is in the form of the two gondolas, and 492 tons in the form of the carried water and boats. In accord with Archimedes' Principle, boats entering the gondolas displace their own weight in water, although a system of sensors, valves and bypass pipes maintain the water levels in the aqueduct and basin, so as to keep those in the gondolas consistent. There's a maximum variation in water height between the paired gondolas of three inches.

The steel fabrication was undertaken by Butterley Engineering, of Ripley. The structure is bolted together, not welded, to give it greater strength. 15,000 bolts were driven through 45,000 holes, the punched-out weight of which was just under seven tons. A joint venture between Morrison Construction, of Scotland, and Bachy Soletanche, of Ormskirk, acted as main contractor. The wheel itself, fabricated offsite, was erected in just six days.

Arup Consultants and Tony Gee and Partners acted as civil engineers. Much clever materials thinking went into the engineering. The elegant hoops that support the aqueduct, for instance, are of steel-reinforced concrete up to the point that carries the weight of the trough, but of GRP (glassed-reinforced plastic) above that. The canal engineers and navvies of old would be proud.

Two Mile House, Cheshire

Two Mile House, Rough Hill, near Dodleston, lies close to the junction of the A483 and the A55. The original part of the farmhouse, symmetrical about a central gable, is of the late 17th century, and comprises two-and-a-half storeys and three bays.

In the late 19th century were added a two storey, two-bay extension to the right, and a further extension to the rear. The construction is of brick, with sandstone dressings and a slated roof. The original part boasts sash windows; those in the extensions are casements.

Of six bedrooms and four reception rooms, the house was Grade II listed in 1983. It has been empty since 2014, when it was bought, for £575k, by a development company. It and the extensive associated farm buildings look set for demolition, as in 2017 was granted outline planning permission for an estate of 483 dwellings.

Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest

Construction of what was originally called the Palace of the Republic began in 1983, the cornerstone laid on 25 June 1984. Romanian Communist Party leader Ceaușescu had seen the monumental architecture of North Korea on a visit to fellow dictator Kim Il-sung, and had decided that his palace would rival anything else in its scale and opulence. 2.7 square miles of Bucharest, home to monasteries, a hospital, 37 factories and workshops, and 40,000 people, were demolished to make way for this vision.

With 3,930,000 square feet of floor space, the palace is the third largest administrative building in the world, after The Pentagon (Virginia, USA) and the Long'ao Building (Jinan city, China). At over 90 million cubic feet, it is the third most voluminous building in the world, after the Rocket Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral, USA, and the pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, in Mexico. The palace is the heaviest building in the world, weighing in at over four million tons, and as a consequence sinks about a quarter of an inch per year.

Between 20,000 and 100,000 people, working 24 hours a day, in three shifts, were forced to undertake the construction. Thousands died. Over 700 architects, under chief architect Anca Petrescu, were engaged in the work, but had a largely technical role, with the megalomaniac Ceaușescus interfering at every stage.

885 feet wide, 790 feet front to back, the building stands 276 feet tall. It has a footprint of over 710,000 square feet. Of twelve above-ground storeys, in three registers, plus eight underground levels, the palace contains over 1,100 rooms, of which just 400 or so are in use. Although the exterior was completed in 1997, hundreds of rooms remain unfinished.

Some of the principal rooms and halls of the first register, the most opulent, can be visited by the public. In this register alone there are about 20 rooms of 2,000 to 7,500 square feet; three of 10,000 to 15,000 square feet; two of over 21,000 square feet (Union Hall, photo above, boasts over 23,000 square feet); two vast meeting rooms, seating 850 and 1,200 respectively; and the two official apartments intended, one suite each, for Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu.

The construction material quantities are gargantuan: 35 million cubic feet of marble, 550,000 tons of cement, two million tons of sand, 1,000 tons of basalt, 700,000 tons of steel, 3,500 tons of crystal, seven million cubic feet of glass, 32 million cubic feet of wood, 2.3 million square feet of carpet. There are 4,500 chandeliers, of an intended 11,000.

And the materials used are of the highest quality, largely from Romania: pink and white Rușchița marble, red and black Moneasa marble; sweet cherry, walnut, mahogany and oak. Yet the quality of the work leaves much to be desired. Despite the obsessive reworking required by the Ceaușescus - Elena had the monumental paired stairs built three times over - the joints and junctions are poorly executed, the chandeliers are missing drops, the carpets are twisted.

The whole place has an air of pointless extravagance. It was known by Romanians, most of whom were living in a peasant economy, as the Madman's House. And mad it is. The Rosetti Room, built as a performance hall, seating 850 - photo above - lacks a backstage area and has a tiny stage, such that it's never been used for the presentation of a play.

Since the 1989 revolution that deposed Ceaușescu, when the building was renamed the Palace of the People, Romania has struggled to find uses for a structure that, on the one hand, is a ridiculous folly, yet, on the other, was built at great cost, both financial and human, and might as well be pressed into use. Now called the Palace of the Parliament, it presently houses the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, an international conference centre, the Constitutional Court, and the Legislative Council, with space to spare.

Regal Cinema, Oswestry

In the 1930s Oswestry boasted three cinemas. The King's Theatre, later renamed the Granada, then later still the Century Cinema, in New Street, is now a Wilco store. The Public Hall, subsequently renamed the Picturedrome, then the Playhouse, and finally the Plaza, in Oswald Road, has long been demolished.

The Regal Super Cinema opened on 22 May 1933, occupying the corner of Leg Street and English Walls. The architect was Lionel Arthur George Prichard, of Liverpool. The architectural practice is still going strong. The first film shown was the pre-Code (Hollywood censorship) comedy "A Successful Calamity", featuring George Arliss and Mary Astor.

Independently operated, the cinema could seat 1,080 cinema-goers, 744 in the stalls and 336 in the circle. Sydney Bernstein, of Granada Theatres Ltd, took an interest in November 1934, although Granada did not fully own the cinema until February 1955. It closed for improvements, and re-opened on 23 May 1956, now named the Granada Theatre.

The cinema traded as such until 14 June 1975, when it passed into the hands of an independent operator. It reopened on 25 February 1976, once more named the Regal Cinema, but now with 839 seats. In 1985 the cinema was split into two screens, and the capacity was reduced to 522, 261 for each of the screens. A third screen, added in 1987 on the former stage, added another 66 seats.

Later the capacity was reduced once more, to 259 in front of a single screen, the remainder of the space converted to a nightclub. The Regal closed on 16 June 1994, and the building remained vacant until March 2003, when it was gutted. Two floors were inserted and, from spring 2004, the building reopened as a clothing store. It has, since then, housed a variety of clothing and charity shops.

There are plans afoot, in the form of the Regal Project, a local community interest organisation, to purchase the Regal, and the adjoining retail space, 16 Cross Street (photos 3 to 6), and convert the two, combined together, into a multi-use arts and culture facility.

Foel Ortho

Foel translates from the Welsh as bald, or bare, hill. But the hillside at Foel Ortho is anything but bald.

In a ruinous state at that time, the farmhouse was discovered in 1967 by Jenny and Eddie Matthews.

The steep acre of ground, between Penybontfawr and Lake Vyrnwy, has over the decades been graced with a series of DIY follies.

With winding and stepped paths between fake rocks, stone-retained terraces, a mock castle, towers linked by a bridge, buttressed walls, and a giant chess set, the place is like nothing so much as a miniature Portmeirion.

Freetown Christiania

Christiania, now covering about 19 acres of the military barracks of Bådsmandsstræd (abandoned from 1967), and remnants of the city ramparts, in the Christianshavn area of Copenhagen, was squatted in 1971.

A mission statement was co-authored by the journalist Jacob Ludvigsen: "The objective of Christiania is to create a self-governing society whereby each and every individual holds themselves responsible over the well-being of the entire community. Our society is to be economically self-sustaining and, as such, our aspiration is to be steadfast in our conviction that psychological and physical destitution can be averted."

The residents developed their own set of rules: no stealing, violence, guns, knives, bullet-proof vests, hard drugs, or bikers' colours. Known also as Freetown Christiania, the commune's cannabis trade was largely tolerated by various Danish governments, some of which saw the area as an interesting social experiment.

Since 1994 the residents have paid taxes for services such as water, electricity and rubbish disposal. The area's open but illegal cannabis trade was ended in 2004, after which outside biker gangs vied to take over the market.

A Christiania resident was killed in April 2005 as a consequence of the resulting violence. The weed trade recommenced, and has operated ever since, other than subsequent to a shooting in 2016 and for a while after police raids.

Since 2010 matters have settled somewhat, and Christiania now operates (largely) under Danish law. Some of the buildings, including the Grey Hall riding house (used as a concert venue), the half-timbered Commander's House, and the 17th and 18th century powder magazines, were listed in 2007 by the National Heritage Agency.

The area was closed to the public by the residents in June 2011, but a year later they set up a collective fund to enable purchase of the land from the defence ministry, making the commune the landowners. No private cars are allowed within the commune, which is currently home to about 900 people.